Police say doctor's slaying at Nevada hospital likely not random

(Reuters) - A gunman who shot and killed a doctor and wounded two other people in a medical office in Reno, Nevada, before taking his own life was apparently not acting randomly but his motives remain unknown, police said Wednesday.

The shooting, the latest in a rash of deadly gun violence in public places in the United States this year, occurred Tuesday afternoon inside a building adjacent to the Renown Regional Medical Center, Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson said.

The gunman walked past the front desk of the doctor's office on the third-floor of the building and into the area of patient exam rooms carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and opened fire.

He killed doctor Charles Gara Gholdoian, 46, a urologist, and injured a patient, Shawntae Spears, 20. A second female victim's name was being withheld at her request, police said at a news conference.

Reno police would not release the name of the suspected gunman. Hovever, Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood identified the suspect as 51-year-old Alan Frazier, of Lake Almanor, California, about 130 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada.

Plumas County officials worked with Reno police in the investigation, Hagwood said, adding that officials collected evidence at Frazier's residence and notified next of kin. Lake Almanor is in Plumas Country.

"He was a longtime Plumas County resident with no outstanding criminal history that I'm aware of," Hagwood said, adding Frazier lived alone and had resided in the area for more than 20 years.

The gunman walked past the front desk of the doctor's office on the third-floor of the building and into the area of patient exam rooms carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and opened fire.

He killed doctor Charles Gara Gholdoian, 46, a urologist, and injured a patient, Shawntae Spears, 20. A second female victim's name was being withheld at her request, police said at a news conference.

The suspect fired five rounds in all, including one he used to kill himself before police swarming the building arrived on the scene.

Venzon said investigators have no knowledge of a family relationship between the gunman and his victims, or what other ties he might have had to them.

"The fact that the shooter went through the first and second floor and made his way to the third floor of the building would indicate to me that it's not a random event," he said.

Deputy Chief Tom Robinson added: "We don't know what the motive was but obviously he had something he wanted to do there (at the doctor's office)."

Police also said they had not determined whether the gunman was a patient of the medical office or the adjacent hospital.

The Center for Advanced Medicine B, where the shooting took place, is in an office building across a road from the main hospital campus.

The shooting in Reno, the most populous city in Nevada outside the Las Vegas metropolitan area, came four days after a Colorado teenager armed with a shotgun critically wounded a classmate and committed suicide at a suburban Denver high school.